Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Work is driving me insane today. Seriously, there are some days where I am appalled at my inexperience handling various tasks I have to do. Consequently, I am amazed that my boss hasn’t seen through this sham and already fired me.

I guess I don’t need to be blogging while I’m here, though. But moving on…

Busy, busy, busy week so far. Sunday we celebrated my dad’s birthday, and now I am officially done with holiday obligations. Which couldn’t have come at a better time, because I am also five pounds heavier, thanks to my holiday obligations. Sigh.

But! I had tons o’ fun yesterday evening. My gal pals and I went out. First we went to the MCA for their Bingo/Tango night. The idea is that you play Bingo to win prizes, and then during breaks there are these professional tango dancers who teach lessons. However, the coordinators underestimated the appeal of the Bingo/Tango Night, and so they were horribly over-crowded. Also, the announcer was more interesting in turning the letters B-I-N-G and O into sexual words (“Gonorrhea 26! Orgasm 51!”) while trying to be hip and funny, so he just came off as a jackass. A jackass who couldn’t project his voice, either. I couldn’t hear a damn thing.

So I decided to take a tour of the museum, and I came to the conclusion that I always come to when I go to the MCA – the permanent collection is a piece of crap. I’m not just saying this because I have a bachelor’s degree in Art History, either. For God’s sake, I took ice skating and aqua aerobics my senior year – I don’t remember the Art History part that much. I think anyone would think that the MCA permanent collection sucks. Don’t be fooled by the website’s overview of their collection - I didn’t see the Calder, the Warhol, the Sherman, the Close, or the Reinhardt. Besides the Calder mobile that I might have missed because I didn’t look up, the rest should have been there. And it’s not that I’m looking for the big names in contemporary art or anything, it’s just that if I’m told that they’re there, I wouldn’t mind seeing them as I’m passing through.

The thing that gets me is that the traveling exhibitions at the MCA are fantastic. I went to the Chuck Close retrospective and the Roy Lichtenstein Interiors exhibit, and Steve went to the Tropicalia Movement exhibit last year. I guess I just feel that a museum can’t exist on traveling exhibitions alone – it should have a solid permanent collection, too. We Chicagoans are very lucky that we have the Art Institute to make up for the MCA.

One more thing: as we were getting our coats from the coat check, there was one, solitary comment in the comment box. All it said on it, in small letters, was “underwhelming.” So it’s not just me that feels this way! Boo-yah!

I will now get off my (triumphant) soapbox.

What was really fun, though, was seeing my girlfriends from college. One is getting her Masters/PhD at UC Berkeley, and one is getting her Masters at U of I in Champaign. So we don’t get to see them that often. It was nice to sit with a bunch of girls, knitting, eating Mexican food and catching up on each others’ lives. This is quite a departure from my Usual Social Life, which is mostly a Sausage Fest consisting of Steve,* his roommates, and occasionally a few more guys with some spatterings of girls.

*I must clarify that Steve did go with for the Mexican/knitting/talking portion of the evening. But he’s a trooper like that.*

Other things:

1. I am broker than broke. I’m not really, I get paid tomorrow, but my landlord has this awesome habit of depositing my rent check days after I’ve written it and accounted for it, so my heart stops when I check my balance after it’s gone through. In short, so far my whole Plan To Save Money in 2007 is off to an awesome start.

2. Steve started his new job this week. It’s weird to for him to have the same 9-5 schedule as me. I think it’s going to be awesome in the long run, though, because the super-early mornings or late, late nights that he had as an electrician totally blew, for both of us. Also, he looks adorable in business casual.

3. Hot Chip. Steve had this band in his car stereo, and I’ve been driving his car around, and they’ve grown on me. I especially like the song, “Over and Over” (check out their MySpace profile to listen). However, I can’t decide if I like that song because I really like it, or because it’s just catchy and gets stuck in your head. If I’m feeling all stabby-stabby in a few days, I guess we’ll know the answer.

4. My dog and I had a photo shoot the other day. I promise someday I'll post stuff other than pictures of my dog and my nephew on my Flickr account. Someday.

1 comment:

Well, to be fair, the MCA doesn't keep their collection on exhibit most of the time. They tend to just have "collection shows" every now and then. Right now everything they have there is traveling. They actually have a pretty excellent collection, and every time they have a show with selections from their own collection, it's pretty solid.